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U.S. Lawmakers Agree on $900 Billion Aid Bill; Trump Denies Martial Law Discussion in Oval Office; Trump Team Petitions High Court with More Fraud Claims; Trump Casts Doubt on Russian Involvement in Hacking; Countries Blocking U.K. Travel Over New COVID Variant; China Aims to Vaccinate 50 Million by Lunar New Year. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired December 21, 2020 - 04:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: How soon will people who are suffering right now, having trouble putting food on the table for their kids, paying their rent, how soon will these folks start feeling the effects of this emergency relief package?

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): Well, I hope as soon as possible. It may depend on what provision of the bill that they're relying upon. If they're a small business, they'll have to go through the process of applying for those PPP funds. But the extensions in unemployment assistance I hope will be implemented ASAP. Again, it may depend in part on how fast the states can turn things around. But I'm glad that there is help on the way.

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ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: And the White House says President Trump will sign the relief bill once it reaches his desk. CNN's Eleni Giokos joins us now with more details. Good to see you Eleni. So walk us through the process of what happens next, and we should get some sort of idea of how long it'll takes before unemployed Americans get some much needed help.

ELENI GIOKOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The pressure is absolutely on in Washington right now, and remember, we were meant to have a government shut down on Friday. That was averted, but a time has been bought and of course, President Trump now has extended that by 24 hours. So essentially, you have to see voting going through the house, and then through the Senate and then finally a final signature by President Donald Trump.

And what we understand now is the bill is being written, the wording matters. It is still a complicated process. But of course they're hoping to do it by the end of Monday. Now, the obstacles and the issues that have been holding up the negotiations for months now basically remain the same. Business liability protections has been excluded. We know Republicans wanted that in the package. And of course a big one for the likes of the Democrats has been funding and aid for states and local governments. Those items have been excluded. But what's in the bill right now are the priority items. So the

enhanced unemployment benefits of $300 per week. Now, that's been extended. That basically means that around 12 million Americans that were going to fall out of that protection the day after Christmas now have a longer buffer. The $600 check, the stimulus check that will be going to adults and children is now back in play. But very much watered down from the initial number of $1,200 per person that was spoken about months ago.

Remember, we're talking about a $900 billion bipartisan package. Initially the number was closer to $2 trillion. So this is why the Democrats are saying it's a good starting point. It is the floor and not the ceiling when it comes to relief aid going forward.

What's also important to note is the Republicans had come up with another conversation over the past few days prior to the very big deadline on Friday wanting to try and limit federal reserve loan, emergency loans into next year. That would have stifled the Biden administration, and that was definitely one of the big sticking points. But going forward, now it's to ensure that this gets passed and signed, and then there's a lot of work at play here, Rosemary, and hopefully a little bit of a battle for the vulnerable, the millions of vulnerable Americans that are facing more lock downs, a surge in coronavirus cases, definitely an uncertain future here.

Yes, but at least it's started and let's hope the process moves along quickly. Eleni Giokos, many thanks, appreciate it.

Well, a shocking new tactic to extend U.S. President Donald Trump's time in the White House has Washington on edge. At a meeting in the Oval Office sources say there was talk of invoking martial law in some states to overturn election results. President Trump has denied these claims. CNN's Jeremy Diamond has more.

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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well with one month until inauguration day, President Trump is continuing to contest the result of the 2020 election. And privately, he's still grasping for ways to try and overturn the results of that election, or at a minimum to undermine Joe Biden's upcoming presidency.

We're told that President Trump late Friday night had a meeting with Sidney Powell, that controversial attorney who has pushed these debunked and crazed conspiracy theories about the 2020 election as well as Michael Flynn who is the president's former national security adviser and who pleaded guilty to two counts of lying to federal investigators.

Now we're told that the president in this meeting was discussing the possibility of naming Powell as a special counsel to investigate allegations of election fraud in the 2020 election. That's despite the fact that Powell who was previously on the president's legal team, she was removed from that team after she continued to push these conspiracy theories that were simply too much for the other members of that team, including suggesting that the CIA, that the late Venezuelan leader, Hugo Chavez were involved with rigging this election. Both claims with absolutely no merit.

[04:35:00]

Now more concerningly we also heard that the president was discussing the possibility raised earlier last week by Michael Flynn of imposing martial law in several key battleground states to essentially rerun those democratic elections. That thought really provoked quite a bit of criticism from Republicans and Democrats.

SEN. MITT ROMNEY (R- UT): Well, it's not going to happen. That's going nowhere, and I understand the president is casting about trying to find some way to have a different result than the one that was delivered by the American people. But it's really sad in a lot of respects and embarrassing because the president could right now be writing the last chapter of this administration with a victory lap with regards to the vaccine.

PETE BUTTIGIEG, U.S. TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY NOMINEE: It's irresponsible and it's dangerous but at the end of the day, this is a country of laws. And the American people have spoken. The election took place.

DIAMOND: Now to be clear, there's no indication that this martial law idea is being seriously considered. The military has made clear that they will not be involved in any effort to overturn the results of the election or determine who the next president will be.

But nonetheless, the fact that it was discussed in the Oval Office with the President of the United States is quite remarkable in and of itself. And some of these more outlandish ideas face quite significant pushback we're told from the White House Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, as well as the White House counsel Pat Cipollone. In fact, so much so that sources describe this meeting as quote, ugly, and saying that it devolved into a shouting match at times.

Now we do we know that the president's campaign, his attorney Rudy Giuliani, they are continuing to pursue legal measures. Rudy Giuliani announcing in a statement on Sunday that he is filing a petition with the Supreme Court asking them to hear a case to overturn three rulings by the Pennsylvania state Supreme Court. That effort is expected to be one of another long shot efforts that have gone nowhere. In fact, of course, the electoral college has already certified the results of the 2020 election, and Giuliani's lawsuit here appears to be frivolous according to legal experts.

Jeremy Diamond CNN, the White House.

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CHURCH: So let's talk now with CNN political analyst, Sabrina Siddiqui. She is also a national politics reporter at "The Wall Street Journal." Thank you so much for joining us.

SABRINA SIDDIQUI, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Thank you so much for having me. CHURCH: So what did you make of the heated Oval Office meeting on Friday, where the president considered declaring martial law to force new elections in some battleground states. And also apparently considered making lawyer and conspiracy theorist, Sidney Powell, a special counsel to investigate his baseless claims of election fraud. Where is all this going?

SIDDIQUI: Well, to be honest, it's most likely going nowhere. And this is really just part of the president's last ditch efforts to overturn an election that has already been certified in all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia. And this is a discussion that often led to shouting matches inside the White House with some of the president's own aides pushing back intensely against the idea that he could declare martial law. And the people that pushed back include White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

Because at the end the day the Trump campaign has already lost almost every one of its cases in court, trying to claim without any evidence that there was some kind of voter fraud. And quite clearly, it is the case that Joe Biden will be inaugurated on January 20th. There's nothing that President Trump can do about it. And so anything at this stage is just that desperation on his part to try and change what's already written on the wall.

CHURCH: Right, and we're also learning that the Trump campaign is once again petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court over the Pennsylvania election results. What might the outcome of that effort be?

SIDDIQUI: It's highly unlikely once again that there's going to be any change in the outcome of the election or any real success on the part of the Trump campaign. The Supreme Court has already rejected at least one effort by the Trump campaign, and Republican allies to try and change the results of the election.

But again, this is an election that has been certified and the American people have spoken. It's just become abundantly clear that even the courts have no appetite to hear yet another appeal on the part of a president who has been voted out of office. And look, at the end of the day, I think even though Trump appointed three justices to the Supreme Court, you've seen now more and more of an acceptance that Joe Biden is the next president of the United States. Even Republicans in Congress are finally starting to acknowledge what happened in the November election. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell congratulated just days ago Joe Biden on his election victory.

So it's quite clear that everyone else has moved on. The Trump campaign at this point, I think and the president and his ally, a lot of these efforts might be geared more toward fundraising off the election, for whatever it is the president chooses to do next. I don't think there's any real sense that there could be anything that will change the course of the election and its outcome.

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CHURCH: Perhaps we shall. Sabrina Siddiqui, many thanks for joining us. Appreciate it. SIDDIQUI: Thank you so much.

CHURCH: And coming up on CNN NEWSROOM, U.S. President Donald Trump downplaying a massive cyberattack linked to Russia. A live report from Moscow, next.

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CHURCH: U.S. Senate Republican Mitt Romney is speaking out on a suspected Russian cyberattack being downplayed by President Donald Trump.

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ROMNEY: Well, the president has a blind spot when it comes to Russia, and so you can expect that that's the response that he would have. What it underscores is Russia acts with impunity with regard to these cyberattacks because they don't think we have the capacity to respond in like measure. They also recognize that our defense is inadequate, and they've come to recognize that what will come from the White House will not be the kind of rhetoric which will be jarring.

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CHURCH: Mr. Trump has tweeted that the attack is under control and blamed the media for making it bigger. He even went against his own Secretary of State saying the hack may have come from China.

CNN's Frederik Pleitgen joins us now live from Moscow. Good to see you Fred. So even at the end of his presidency, Donald Trump still refuses to hold Russia accountable. Now this time for her massive hack, of course. But what's being said about all of this in Moscow, anything?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Rosemary, it's been quite interesting the past couple of days. Because all we've gotten shortly after all this set into light, was a denial from the Russian embassy in Washington, D.C., but so far, the Kremlin has been mute or silent on the issue.

But literally a couple of minutes ago, we actually got the first comment from the Kremlin.

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We asked Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on a conference call with journalists what he thought of the discussions between President Trump and his Secretary of State as to who might be behind this hacking attack.

Obviously, Mike Pompeo saying he believes it's almost certainly the Russians. President Trump as you say, saying it might be China, and forgive me more reading this. Because we just literally got this a couple of minutes ago.

Dmitry Peskov, this is the spokesman of the Kremlin says, quote -- This discussion definitely has nothing to do with us because Russia has nothing to do with such attacks and this attack in particular. We say that officially and decisively, any accusation against Russia in these regards are baseless and are probably the continuation of blind Russophobia which is being engaged in relation to any incident.

So once again, a vehement denial there coming from the Kremlin, some of the first comments we've seen from the Kremlin since all of this came to light. So certainly, we are hearing from the Russians. They are denying it.

One of the other things that Dmitry Peskov by the way also said, is that he wasn't sure whether or not the U.S. will retaliate to this, and what the retaliation could be. He's saying that the Russians believe that the White House has been unpredictable in this regard over the past couple of months. So clearly the Russians right now very much in a wait and see modus, at the same time, of course, commenting as little as possible on all this as those discussions continue in the United States -- Rosemary.

CHURCH: And so Fred, what might this mean for future relations between Russia and the Biden administration?

PLEITGEN: Yes, it's a really tricky issue, isn't it? The past couple of years, we've always had President Trump who had very good relations with Vladimir Putin. At the same time though, you had the U.S. relations with Russia probably at one of their low points with the U.S. leveeing sanctions for various actions conducted by Russia over the past years.

And if you look at the incoming Biden administration, it is, Rosemary, probably going to be quite difficult. One of the things that we have learned is that the U.S. intelligence community has assessed that Russia had tried to meddle in the past presidential election of 2020 in favor of President Trump.

Certainly, that's not a very good way to start, then, with President- elect Biden coming into office fairly soon, and now you have this alleged hacking attack by the Russians. That certainly is another thing that could paint these relations forward before President-elect Biden even moves into the White House -- Rosemary.

CHURCH: We'll keep a close eye on it, of course. Frederik Pleitgen, many thanks for joining us. Appreciate it.

Well as a handful of countries begin vaccinating people against COVID- 19, China has an ambitious plan to get 50 million people inoculated by February. A live report from Beijing, next.

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CHURCH: Welcome back, everyone. Well, two cases of the new coronavirus variant first detected in the U.K. have been found in Australia. Health authorities say it was detected in two people who returned to Australia from the U.K. and went into managed quarantine in Sydney. So that was why they were able to detect it. The New South Wales chief health officer says that means the variant is not responsible for a cluster that's cropped up in north Sydney.

And joining me now is Dr. Dale Fisher, chair of the World Health Organization's outbreak alert response network. Thank you, sir, for talking with us.

DALE FISHER, CHAIR, WHO'S GLOBAL OUTBREAK ALERT RESPONSE NETWORK: Hi, Rosemary.

CHURCH: So, of course we know that viruses mutate. That's what they do. How concerned are you about this new COVID variant showing up in the U.K. and elsewhere? And are people overreacting or is this exactly what should happen in this situation?

FISHER: I think the answer is in your question actually, Rosemary. It's not particularly unexpected. Mutations do occur, of course, we are concerned when we see something that's, perhaps slightly surprising. This particular lineage has got a lot of mutations and a critical part of the virus. But it really is just reminding us of the basic measures and why vigilance is critical.

CHURCH: And countries of course we're seeing this. They are putting travel bans in place to and from the U.K. and other countries, and that could potentially have dangerous consequences in terms of food supplies. Is that the right way to go? Do travel bans need to be put into effect? Or do people just need to sit back, take a breath, wear masks and follow all of the instructions that the W.H.O. and other health services have told us to do?

FISHER: Again, the answer is in the question. Now seriously, I'm not in favor of the travel bans. I gather most of them are really for just for 48 hours, so maybe they are just taking a breather that you're talking about while they regroup and think about it.

But these mutations were first identified in late September actually in London. And it's now being identified in genomes that have been analyzed about 1,600 times in London, Kent, Scotland, Wales and there's a few overseas places, I think Netherlands and Australia have also seen it.

So, I think if we start doing a lot more genomic surveillance worldwide, we'll probably going to see that in that sense, the cat is out of the bag.

CHURCH: Some good advice, there.

Well, China is planning an ambitious effort to vaccinate 50 million people against the coronavirus before February's lunar new year's celebrations. The first in line include health care workers, customs and border inspection workers, people in the food industry, and other essential workers.

And CNN's Steven Jiang joins us now from Beijing. Good to see you Steven. So it is an ambitious vaccination goal. How is this going to work?

STEVEN JIANG, CNN SENIOR PRODUCER: Well, Rosemary, the officials here haven't revealed a lot of details in terms of how they're going to implement this plan. But remember, 15 million may sound ambitious, this is a country with 1.4 billion people. So that's less than 5 percent of the population, after the combined population of Beijing and Shanghai, just two cities is more than 15 million people.

[04:55:00]

And experts here have said they need to inoculate about 70 percent of the population to have so called herd immunity. So they have a long way to go. That's why officials keep emphasizing right now their priority is these essential workers you just mentioned, and the general public will have to wait for their turn.

Now state media has also reported they are going to be -- this is going to be a two-shot process, so officials hope to complete administering the first shot by January 15th, and a second booster shot a month later.

Now right now, currently there are five Chinese made vaccines in the final stage, the so called phase three stage of clinical trials. But we haven't seen a lot of data from these trials. The two results we have seen so far are from the Gulf region, one from the UAE, the other from Bahrain, both having a 86 percent efficacy. So this kind of lack of transparency has also prompted some concerns.

But the authorities here insist that China is at the forefront of vaccine research and development. They say they have been giving out more than a million doses to a so called high risk group of people here in China since July, and they have not seen any serious adverse reactions so far. And they also say the reason they are a bit slow in publishing their data is because China has so successfully contained this virus within its borders, they are forced to conduct these clinical trials overseas. Even those locations are not hit worse by the virus right now. So that's why they are lagging behind the U.S. and U.K. and publish some of these data and results -- Rosemary.

CHURCH: All right, Steven Jiang bringing us up to date on the very ambitious plan. Appreciate it.

And thank you so much for your company. I'm Rosemary Church, "EARLY START" is up next. You're watching CNN. Do have yourselves a wonderful day.

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